


Everything that Kills Me Makes Me Feel Alive

by ButterflyGhost



Series: Shadow of the Bookman [8]
Category: due South
Genre: Episode Related, Friendship/Love, Gen, Missing Scene, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 21:39:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15737844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyGhost/pseuds/ButterflyGhost
Summary: This one's for Elissa Richert and Shadow2Serenity, who love Ray Vecchio as much as I do.





	Everything that Kills Me Makes Me Feel Alive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadow2Serenity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow2Serenity/gifts), [crosscountry07](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crosscountry07/gifts).



_ I’ve been here before. _

 

Muldoon is raising his gun. Benny is in the line of fire.  _ Another one bites the dust.  _ A stupid, inappropriate, disrespectful song plays out in Ray’s head as he moves in slow motion. He pivots, the skirt of his coat sweeping around him as he turns into the line of fire.  _ It has to be me. _ He has no choice but to stop Muldoon. There never was any choice; the gun has always been waiting for him. He has lived his life in the shadow of the gun. His death is justice. There will be no justice if Benny dies. And he can’t die. How much can one man go through? How many times does the same story have to tell itself? Time and again, Benny’s family gunned down. His mother, his father; blood on snow that Ray has never seen. Benny himself. Blood on a platform, spreading out not red but black in Ray’s memory. All of it, black and white, his whole life until it was eaten up by the glittering grey of Vegas. Diamonds and dust, scattered worthless in the desert, forgotten on a platform. The femme fatale takes her victim, with a kiss that never happened on a train; the smack-punch of gunfire: blowback, kickback, the heavy gun falling. 

 

And life was black and white back then. It blazed a terrible red for a moment, then faded back to black. Muldoon is aiming his gun and the world is red again. So much blood. Too much blood. Not Benny. It can’t be Benny. It  _ won’t _ be Benny. 

 

Not again.

 

Ray feels everything, the press of his clothes on his skin, his mother’s cross beneath his shirt, against his chest. He feels his arc through time, a trajectory reaching its endpoint as the world flashes back from the end to the beginning. Life flows backward. Everything is slow, slowing, not quite stopped. He sees it all again. Marco, Zuko, Pa, Ma, Armando, Benny. He sees his sisters, his victims, his saints. Everyone he ever loved, everyone he ever hated, everyone he ever kissed, everyone he ever killed.

 

It’s coming. He knows it. His last moment, his last breath.  _ Please.  _

 

The moment draws out, stretches forever,  _ stops _ . Soon it will snap shut. Ray has been here before, played both sides of the game. Gun, gunman, victim. 

 

Bullet. 

 

The pain punches into him, slamming him backward. He folds into the pain, feels himself fall. Kowalski is leaning over him, his mouth moving, looks as though he’s shouting, but there’s no noise anymore. He hopes that Benny is distracted. Ray doesn’t want Benny to see him die. He doesn’t want to see Benny seeing him. He just needs him safe. 

 

Kowalski’s face is blurring, receding, drawing back into the black. He’s the spot fading in the centre of an old television.  _ Show’s over. _ All the drama, all the guilt, all the wasted chances bleed out on the floor. He should have told Benny. If he had done what would he have said? _ I’m sorry. I didn’t want to go. I love you. _

 

They would have been good things to say before the world went away.

 

For the first time in his life, Ray is listening to complete silence. No heartbeat, no tidal pulse of blood in his veins. He had never even known that he heard them. The silence is peaceful as his breath stops. It’s terrifying. It’s beautiful. It’s what he needs. It’s what he deserves.

 

_ Goodnight, Benny. _

 

~*~

 

When he wakes it is to such a broken heart that for a moment he stops breathing again. 

 

_ I’m still here. I didn’t die. Why am I still here? _

 

A brief hope flickers in his chest. Perhaps he’s here so that he has a chance to tell Benny -

 

What was it he was going to tell him? 

 

Oh. Oh, that.

 

If he has to live then he can’t tell Benny any of those things.  _ Sorry. I didn’t want to, I love - _

 

He can’t say them. They’re not words that he can push into the world. It’s too much of a burden to put on Benny. What did Benny ever do to be punished with Ray’s love?

 

So when Benny comes to see him, Ray gives him his blessing. He smiles at him, laughs with him, lies to him. Tells him it’s okay to leave, to do what needs to be done. 

 

Benny waits until he thinks that Ray is sleeping, kisses his forehead. Ray doesn’t open his eyes. He can’t watch him walking out the door.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This one's for Elissa Richert and Shadow2Serenity, who love Ray Vecchio as much as I do.


End file.
